Two steps forward, one step backward: addressing Violence against Women in Suriname

Abstract

Introduction Violence against Women has long been ignored as a societal problem in Suriname. Domestic Violence in particular was seen as a private matter, and therefore not something for the State to interfere in. According to 1993 statistics 69 % of Surinamese women had experienced violence in their conjugal relationships. Legally married women seemed to be at less risk of domestic violence than those in common-law marriages, but otherwise the incidence of domestic violence was consistent regardless of ethnicity, geography (urban/ rural) and employment status1 . Entering the decade of the 1990s, Suriname had just one nongovernmental organization (NGO) assisting victims of domestic violence, based in the capital Paramaribo2. Women activists sheltered women who could not return to a dangerous home environment, and provided counseling as best as they could from their own life experience. impact of NGO efforts to battle gender-based violence remained marginal because of the small scale and incidental nature of the projects and the lack of a consistent policy framework at a macro level.3 Intimate partner violence occurs in all countries, irrespective of social, economic, religious or cultural group. Suriname is no exception to the rule. Although women can be violent in relationships with men, and violence is also sometimes found in same-sex relationships, the overwhelming burden of partner violence is borne by women at the hands of men. Through the efforts of women's organizations, violence against women has become an issue of international concern, recognized as both a human rights and a public health problem4. nineties brought a wave of new ideas and renewed activism, which put domestic violence on the agenda of policy makers and donors. What was special about this wave was that is was both local to global, and global to local: women's activists from around the world lobbied hard in order to have domestic violence acknowledged as a violation of human rights. This article explores how the women's movement in Suriname borrowed and adapted existing strategies and invented new ones that influenced the entire Caribbean region. Human rights approach: Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal patriarchal view of the relationship between men and women was clearly expressed by Xenophon in the fourth century BC: The Gods have created women for the domestic functions and men for all other functions. Women's confinement to only one social space, the home, has meant that through the centuries men have played the role of intermediary between women and all the other spheres of social life. To mediate such a relationship is a formidable exercise of power, even for those men who do not have access to wealth and social prestige. In spite of the inequalities of class, race and culture, the one pattern that seems to cut across centuries and different civilizations, is that a woman is always less entitled to rights than a man.5 issue that women's rights are human rights is therefore at once both simple and complex. On the one hand, it makes common sense to declare that as human beings, women and girls have human rights. On the other hand, it is a radical reclamation of women's humanity and right to equality. language of human rights cuts to the core of women's and girls' inequality and helps to identify violations and the violators who should be held accountable for them. Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 outlines the world's consensus on the human rights that all people have in relation to security of person, slavery, torture, freedom of movement and speech, as well as social security, work, health, education and citizenship. In Article 2, it clearly stipulates that these human rights apply to all equally, without distinction of any kind such as race, color, sex, language or other status. …